PHILADELPHIA — Legend has it Adam had a rib removed to make Eve. Mike Adams had a rib removed to make his arm relieved of pain.

Adams, a right-hander who formally signed a two-year, $12 million contract with the Phillies Thursday to serve as their set-up reliever, had been one of the elite pitchers at that role from 2009-11. However, last season Adams came back to earth quite a bit.

It turned out he was dealing with a rare physical disorder called thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS), a condition that causes nerve and circulatory issues and can result in pain, numbness and swelling down the arm of a sufferer.

“Last year was a struggle for me,” said Adams, who started to experience symptoms in the opening week of the 2012 season. “I didn’t know that’s what I was having. I thought I was just having some sort of shoulder discomfort.

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“I just battled. I didn’t have the same stuff I had previously. I didn’t have a good feel for the ball. It was like I didn’t know how to grip a fastball...It got to the point where my arm felt five or six pounds more than it does, the ball felt like it weighed three pounds. My last outing I felt like I was pitching a shot put.

“I was trying to fix everything...Once I was told I had TOS, it was a huge relief.”

The good news is that a surgery that cuts away the first rib — located just below the collarbone — has resulted in fast and issue-free relief of the issue. It is the same surgery Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter had in the middle of last season. He missed just two months.

After undergoing the surgery in mid-October, Adams was able to get back to throwing this month and had a workout with Phillies front-office assistant Charlie Kerfeld in attendance a couple of weeks ago.

“I’m three weeks into my throwing program, and throwing now feels so much better than it did all of last year,” Adams said. “I’m trying to control myself in terms of not going too fast. It’s hard because everything feels so good.”

When Adams is good, there aren’t many relievers better. Even when battling the arm difficulties last season he was 5-3 with a 3.27 ERA in 61 games. Of course, the three seasons before that had a 1.42 ERA and averaged 61 appearances, striking out more batters (192) than he allowed base runners (151).

If there was one question that needed to be answered Thursday aside from that of his surgery, it was this: Why aren’t you closing somewhere?

“It was important to me to set the standard...for guys who have done well in the eighth inning, but are behind someone for the ninth inning,” Adams said. “It was important to raise the bar financially for (set-up) guys, I guess, so they get compensated the way they should.

“I feel like I could’ve filled the closer role on a lot of teams...I think we’re starting to see the importance of the eighth-inning guy show up the past few years.”

Adams said that as he sat next to Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., who a year ago thought Chad Qualls and Antonio Bastardo were good enough to set up new closer Jonathan Papelbon entering 2012. Oops.

“He’s one of the most consistent back-end guys in the game,” Amaro said. “He’s a guy who, if we have to turn the ball over to him in the ninth inning (he’s capable)...Sometimes you need two closers.”